Rainbow table attack, key-logger, Salami fraud, skimming, phishing are words that people in Tamil Nadu should try to become familiar with. With more than 99% of banking frauds in Tamil Nadu falling in that category, white collar crime is on the rise.

The state saw banking frauds above Rs 1 lakh rise three fold to Rs 1,831.08 crore in 2014-15 from the previous year as per Reserve Bank of India (RBI) data.

Forged documents and identity theft are back in the limelight, after one Dr Thamizharasi T was found to have stolen the identity of one Archana Ramachandran. The Tamil Nadu State Medical Council removed Thamizharasi from the medical registry after it was found to be a case of impersonation.

Topping the 'victim' list on the identity theft charts is the Modi government's Digital India initiative 'Digilockers' for citizens, who want to store sensitive information online. "Digilockers has been compromised repeatedly by rainbow table attacks. Fraud detection is easy if it is physical forging of a document like a school certificate. But digital forging of documents is impossible to verify as there is very little difference between the original and the duplicate," says ethical hacker and Infysec founder Vinod Senthil. "Hacking of encrypted data is all too easy as the recent data breaches of Digilockers has shown," he says.

Another popular method of fraud is a phishing attack. "Lookalike pages of a bank's website can be created to harvest information like credit debit card number, CVV , and expiry date. Overlays at ATMs is also rising," says Deepak Sharma, head of digital initiatives, Kotak Mahindra. "Fraudsters create a false overlay for an ATM. This will fit in so well with the ATM design that customers using their card will not realise the fraud. The information entered by the customer will be captured by the merged element and a web camera, positioned to capture the customer's finger movementATM PIN," says Srikumar V of ATM maker Diebold.

Another popular method is using a key-logger for a software or hardware data theft. "Fraudsters send greeting cards and you could read or forward it to your friends. At the back-end, the greeting card carries a key-logger software that automatically downloads onto your system and steals stored information like credit card details and date of birth. Another technique is inserting a chip or USB onto into a computer and getting a stream of information on all the key stroke movements," says Vinod Senthil.

Skimming or cloning of debit cards is also gaining ground. "Point of sale machines were being used to capture debit card details. This is why banks since January have started issuing chip-encrypted EMV cards, that are more secure than magnetic stripes," says Deepak Sharma.

The rate is Rs 250 with documents and Rs 750 without it to get a new PAN card. Sunil Kumar, a 'PAN card consultant' in Sowcarpet is matter of fact when it comes to getting an official document made. When this correspondent posed as a party interested in getting a PAN without documents, he was assured of a 'trouble-free' process. There are many such dubious agencies that are used by fraudsters who want to launder money or get personal loans under false names. Consumer activist Ashok Modi said there were three agencies in his area.